A Case for Inherent Morality

[JohnJubinsky]

Scientists at the infant cognition center of Yale University conducted an eight year study to determine whether babies are born with a sense of right and wrong or are taught it. They concluded that babies are born with it. They said that parents and society enhance the moral values of babies but do not create them.

https://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/13/livin...index.html

If this is the study in question, there are a few things to ponder.

They tested with puppets -- one who appeared helpful and one who didn't. Then the babies when given a choice preferred the helpful puppet. But as I said earlier, I'm not sure whether this is a moral choice or a pragmatic one. Anybody would want the puppet who helped, if he thought it would help him. Choosing the method of helping yourself is not moral. It would be more of a morality test if the babies sacrificed the help they might receive and gave the helpful puppet to someone who needed it more.

And later in the article it says that "They prefer puppets who have the same tastes as them and they actually want the puppets with the different tastes -- they like other puppets who punish them." This seems to me to indicate innate immorality. But it's not exactly a decisive result for all humans.

So maybe there are lots more studies that I haven't Googled yet. One thing I've found about psych results published in the popular press -- they are often sensationalized and spun to give exciting results. Like the study showing that people love their smart phones as much as their wives. But on closer inspection they often turn out to be somewhat less exciting. 

If you know of other studies I'd be interested to see them.

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@John 6IX Breezy

This is more up your alley. Is there a consensus in the field these days?

If you look at the video you can see that when the six month old hugged the good puppet the hug became a very loving one for a period of time. This confirms that the baby was not simply motivated by the selfish desire for the puppet to help it.

In the case of the three month old it was too young to hug but the researchers knew that babies of that age turned away from things that they didn't like and looked at things that they did like for long periods of time. The baby looked at the bad puppet first and turned away almost immediately. It then looked at the good puppet for a long period of time confirming that it liked it.

The study lasted eight years and was done by highly intelligent and objective people. It is extremely probable that they knew how to interpret the results.

The article mentioned the book "Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil" by Paul Bloom who was one of the researchers. You might get a much more thorough analysis of the study from it.